Problems Facing Beginning School Principals in Kenya
Mwaya Wa Kitavi
Director and Educational Consultant
Overseas Educational Research and Development Agency
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Philip C. Van der Westhuizen
Professor and Director
Graduate School of Education, Potchefstroom University
Potschefstroom, South Africa
Beginning principals in developing countries like Kenya face problems that drastically differ from problems faced by their counterparts in developed countries such as the U.S.A., U.K., and Australia. In this study, the most serious problems facing beginning principals in developing countries like Kenya include inter alia: students who cannot pay school fees and buy books, shortage of school equipment, shortage of physical facilities, lack of staff accommodation, lack of playgrounds, students travelling long distances, and use of English as a mediium of instruction. The problems were ascribed to the educational system's failure to provide enough financial support for schools. A while there is little that beginning principals can do about the financial problems, they should be made aware of them.
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The Preparation of ECEC Personnel in Zimbabwe: An Update and Challenge
Barbara K. Meyers
De Paul University
Chicago, Illinois, USA
While the present barriers to providing quality programs for all young children remains at times almost overwhelming, especially in the economic realm, the southern African nation of Zimbabwe recognizes the importance of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) as part of its national education policy. To improve the quality of primary and secondary education and to reach children not served by existing schools or living in communities where schools are not yet provided, educators and policy makers are challenged to look closely at the preparation of those who work with young children before the age of eligibility for primary schools. This acknowledgement of the importance of the earliest years of life, and the related commitment to the education of all of its children has been clearly identified by the government since the country's establishment of its new national identity in 1980.
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As
Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap:
From Consultant to Collaborator in the Development of a Teacher Preparation
Program in Lesotho
Julia Johnson Rothenberg
The Sage Colleges
Troy, New York, USA
This paper describes a four week consultation at the Lesotho National Techers College of the University of the Kingdom of Lesotho. It was part of the Primary Education Project funded by USAID and the World Bank through a grant to Ohio State University and the State University of New York Research Foundation. The consultation was an unusual one since most of the PEP work was directed towards technical assitance rather than to direct instruction. The purpose of this paper to to describe the change from a routine, albeit adventuresome, consultation to a productive and rewarding collaboration among colleagues. The process hopefully demonstrates a nascent critical pedagogy on the part of the participants.
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Does
the Village Still Raise the Child?
A Collaborative Study of Changing Child-Rearing and Community Mobilization
in Kenya
Beth Blue Swadener
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio, USA
Margaret Kabiru
Anne Njenga
National Centre for Early Childhood Education
Nairobi, Kenya
This paper describes the methodological dynamics, both challenges and successes, of a year-long collaborative study of the impacts of rapid social and economic change on child-rearing and community mobilization in Kenya. The study employed a collaborative, micro-ethnographic design, drawing heavily from interview data and repeated observations in eight districs in Kenya, representing four types of settings, sampling an array of local stakeholders in early childhood care and education. Research questions, sampling procedures, interview questions, and other aspects of the research design were constructed collaboratively with Kenyan colleagues and a Fulbright researcher. The study utilized individual and small group interviews with 462 parents, grandparents, children (older siblings of children under age three), preschool teachers, community leaders, and professionals working with children and families in communities representative of four types of settings: (1) traditional/pastoralist, (2) rural/varying agricultural productivity, (3) plantation/tea and coffe estates, and (4) urban/high population density. Within each districts, 4-5 sub-locations were sampled to further reflect the diversity within districts.
The most common theme in regard to socio-economic changes and associated problems affecting families was the issue of increasing poverty and an array of related problems, including the cost of living and rising cost of educating children. Family changes were also noted, including the rapid transition from a communal, extended family to nuclear family situations, in which parents had few options for child care - particularly for children under three. This problem was particularly acute in plantation and urban slum settings. Older siblings, even when attending school, still have major sibling-care responsibilities, and in traditional Samburu and Maasai communities, grandmothers still provided much of the under three child care. Implications for authentic collaboration across national, ethnic, privilege, and language backgrounds is discussed, drawing implications for strengthening collaborative ethnography from design through dissemination.